From Dave Hickey’s “The Song in Coun­try Music,” in Greil Marcus and Werner Sol­lors’ A New Lit­er­ary His­tory of Amer­ica, quoted by Maud Newton:

When I asked Roger Miller what it was about Williams’s song­writ­ing that touched him, he said, “Metic­u­lous. They’re metic­u­lous and all hooked up.” When I asked him what this meant, he sang me two lines from one of his songs.

The moon is high and so am I.
The stars are out and so will I be pretty soon.

“That’s maybe a little too hooked-​up,” Miller said, and sang half a verse of “Me and Bobby McGee” a song by Kris Kristof­fer­son and Fred Foster that Miller had dis­cov­ered and recorded first.

Busted flat in Baton Rouge
Headed for the trains.
Feel­ing nearly faded as my jeans.

“That’s hooked up,” Miller said. “I love the ‘as’ that picks up ‘flat’ and bat.’”

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